


Tailspin

by AvisPraeda



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Gore, Canon Compliant, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Or late KH3 whichever you prefer personally, Post-Kingdom Hearts III, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:48:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22790479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvisPraeda/pseuds/AvisPraeda
Summary: Aeleus has a vivid nightmare, and it's enough for a decade of stress to boil over.
Relationships: Aeleus/Ienzo (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	Tailspin

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a week ago in one sitting at 1am. No I did not get this beta'd, no I did not edit this. Just slapping it on a page and flinging it out into the ether.

He didn't know what happened. He had been standing behind Ienzo, a hand resting on his shoulder as the scientist rambled, leaning forward ever so slightly to point at some specific detail on the screen. They had come so far in restoring Roxas's heart, right on the cusp of a magnificent breakthrough with Ienzo excitedly listing off all of what it would entail, how much time they would save, and they wouldn't even need to procure a vessel! It was an absolute game-changer.

Ienzo had looked up at him then, eyes shining as bright as the grin on his lips. Aeleus blinked, and...

He was staring at his palms now, and he didn't know why. His left one had small shards of glass embedded in his skin, and his right one was caked red with fresh blood, still running between his fingers and dripping from his knuckles, dragging errant strands of grey-blue hair with it. He was so dazed from the sudden shift that he hadn't even noticed the hair until just then, and his veins ran cold.

Slowly, he dragged his gaze up away from his hands. The computer screen had been completely smashed in to the point that the mechanical innards were visible. Glass scattered every which way along the console and keyboard, and the entire thing was practically spray-painted red. None of that had his attention.

What did, was Ienzo slumped face down against the keyboard. Aeleus's heart stopped dead.

His soft blue hair was a bloody, matted mess, with a clump missing from the back of his head. Massive glass chunks prevented his face from pressing against the keys and forced his neck to bend to the side, and while the angle didn't let Aeleus see most of the gore, it wasn't hard to tell just how far each piece burrowed into his skull; one fist-sized in his forehead, another in the right side of his face, probably right through his eye, and numerous medium shards embedded in his cheek that Aeleus had clear view of. And then there were the thick lacerations... the way his jaw hung slack with his mouth open... the steady trickle of blood against the metal lab floor that grew and grew in volume until it became utterly deafening.

His stomach heaved hard, forcing him to retch, but his body wouldn't let him double over, the noise that choked out of his throat a mere ghost of the horrified wail built up in his chest. Completely and woefully immobilized. But he was moving, his hands slowly opening and closing, pressing the glass deeper into his skin, squishing the blood in his palms, and he could feel every awful bit—it just wasn't _him_ controlling the movement. Even as his fingers freely curled, his muscles felt tight and locked in place, as though he was encased in stone.

All he could do was stare at Ienzo's mutilated corpse as the glass dug into his bones, as his eardrums ruptured from the unbearable dripping, as every hope and dream and fragment of life drained through his feet and left nothing but despair in the shell of a body.

And in the back of his racing mind, rumbling in a way that made it feel as though it physically came from behind, Aeleus heard laughter. Not his own, but a laugh he knew all too well, and it was then he realized the beating in his chest was still rather slow and methodical, completely detached from the terror seizing his being. For one, agonizing second, every thought and sense froze save for sight, and in a last act of desperation against his locked body he fought to drag his eyes up and away to his own reflection in the glass.

The irises gazing back at him glowed a vivid, venomous gold, and the laughing crept around the sides of his skull, loud and clear. Then it stopped, and a familiar, rolling baritone took its place.

“Well done. We no longer have to worry about his interference.”

Everything went dark. When his eyes next twitched, his room was in his view, thoroughly cloaked in shadow, but still recognizable. His chest felt painfully tight, a scream lodged in his throat that obstructed breath, every muscle pulled taut to its limit. He still couldn't move, totally petrified, but this time he didn't even make an attempt to, not until he realized the roar in his ears wasn’t the sound of Ienzo's blood emptying out onto the ground, but of his heart hammering breakneck against his ribs. Only then did the tension snap.

Aeleus flung himself into an upright position, loudly releasing the stuck scream as a fervent breath and sucking in deep gulps of air to stop himself from being sick. One hand twisted the sheets, the other pressed hard against his chest, until his stomach stopped roiling for long enough to pull them both back and check his palms. There was a split second where he swore he saw the blood and glass and hair—nothing more than a trick of his thoroughly frayed nerves in the dark, as his hands were spotless. Heat pricked his eyes. 

His eyes.

He needed a mirror. There wasn't one in his room. The window was too far away to see his reflection. Lord knows where his phone ended up. Bathroom. Bathroom had mirrors, he could check there. Now he willingly allowed his body to move on its own, too far gone to think clearly as he stood up and ungracefully tripped over himself in his scramble to the door. His hand fell on the knob, and immediately he felt a squish between his skin and the brass, which also felt alarmingly like a soft clump of hair in that moment, plus the splatter of something wet on the ground. The deepest pit of his stomach lurched. He didn't dare look, but it brought a whole new impulse crashing into the one currently driving him—Go check on Ienzo.

Aeleus remained rooted on his knees before the door, hand hanging uselessly on the knob—dry and spotless, not that his brain registered the misfire—ricocheting between seeing his reflection or seeing Ienzo first. Ienzo's safety was priority, it always was, but Aeleus himself might be the danger. His eyes might still be gold. Making sure that the beating in his chest belonged to his own heart alone was effectively dealing with both issues at once.

But he _had_ to know Ienzo was alive. The impulse overshadowed any anxiety over his eyes, and he rose from the ground. All the while, the deep echo in the back of his head repeated ad nauseam: _You killed him. You killed him. You killed him._

Never in his life had he been more grateful to have his room across from Ienzo's. He made no attempt at concealing his footsteps as he flew to the other side of the hall, just barely stopping himself from slamming into the door as his rationality abruptly snatched back the steering wheel, hand hovering over the doorknob. _Ienzo's asleep,_ it said, drowning out the echo, _don't wake him up. Just a peek._ Unfortunately, his rationality didn't have total sway over his body yet, so he still shoved open the door much harder than intended. And there Ienzo was, curled in bed, blankets pulled up over his shoulder, safe and alive and obviously not dead from having his face smashed into a computer screen.

Finally, Aeleus broke. The stinging in his eyes spilled over into tears of relief and fear and a myriad of other emotions storming through his heart. He fought to keep his breathing quiet, lest he wake Ienzo, but it was for naught when the smaller man lifted his head, then pushed himself up onto one arm with a soft, groggy grunt.

“Aeleus?” Ienzo rasped out, blinking up at him in the darkness.

A sob wormed its way up, but Aeleus refused to let it out, clenching his jaw and pressing his lips into a line. All he needed was one look, one reassurance that Ienzo was okay, and he should've gone right to the bathroom; instead he stood wrought in the doorway, the frame groaning from his white-knuckled grip, inexplicably both soothing the tempest and empowering it further. Every second he remained, uncertain of whether he was alone in his own body, he was putting Ienzo in grave danger.

“Aeleus?” Ienzo repeated, clearer and tinged with worry now as he sat up fully, having sensed something was wrong. Or maybe he heard Aeleus's uneven breathing, or the faint drop of his tears against the old wood floor. When he pushed off the covers and stood up, Aeleus's heart went at war with itself.

_He's alive._

_Don't come close._

The gruesome memory of Ienzo's head against the console flashed through his mind.

_It's not safe._

_He can help._

_I—_

He squeezed his eyes shut as the lights flashed on, blinded momentarily by the brightness. Warm hands slid against and cupped his cheeks, thumbs catching the tears and clearing the tracks, and when he blinked he was met with the sight of Ienzo staring up at him with a deep frown of concern, that one visible, wonderful blue iris vibrant. The sob almost slipped out, but he managed to morph it into a pitiful, throaty gasp, not that it was any better.

“What happened?” Ienzo whispered, and waited for some kind of response. Even just a weak nod or shake of the head or something to acknowledge his voice was reaching him. But Aeleus couldn't manage it, the haunting afterimages of his nightmare paralyzing him, braced for the reveal that this was still part of the horror show, all a ploy to lull him down from his panic before the rug was yanked out from under his feet again.

Again he couldn't control his body, and again it moved anyway without his command, except now it was Ienzo who guided him with palms cradling his head, carefully walking backwards into his room. The tears didn't stop, and Ienzo's thumbs continued catch them the whole way, even as the wet spilled over and ran down the backs of his hands. They moved until Ienzo's legs bumped the foot of his bed, where Ienzo took a seat and coaxed Aeleus down beside him.

For a few minutes the two sat in silence, eyes locked on one another. Aeleus blinked once, and a phantom image of what Ienzo's face _could've_ looked like overlapped the real Ienzo's like a veil of fog—broken nose bent to the side, the long fringe of his hair parted by a hunk of glass jutting out from the eye socket, the one in his forehead lodged at such an angle that it held the wound open so the inner flesh and bone was visible, a metal coil from the computer hanging on his skin, lips sliced and coated in the blood that trickled from his open mouth, and his one, intact eye wide and glazed with pain and fear. A coppery tang hit Aeleus’s nose. All at once he felt ill again, and the room spun.

His expression must have reflected his revulsion, because Ienzo suddenly spoke. “Aeleus,” he called again, trying to regain the guard’s focus, “it's okay.” It worked, Ienzo's voice rippling through the gore like a breeze through smoke. “I'm safe. _We're_ safe. Breathe, I'm right here. We're okay.”

For the first time since waking up, his body was his own, and his trembling hands moved by his will alone. One raised up, fingers grazing Ienzo's wrist and ghosting over the hand on his right cheek, the other reached out towards Ienzo, almost touching his knee, but curling away, hesitant. He was the first to break their eye contact, trailing down to the hand, then doubling back up to Ienzo's chest where he tried to keep it, watching the rise and fall with each steady breath.

Yet he couldn't force himself to match his breathing, fear still thick and choking on his tongue, and when he tried to meet his gaze again he found Ienzo's eyes flitting about subtly. Analyzing, searching, trying to figure something out. Whatever it was, it didn't take him very long, brow raising and eyes widening in surprise for the briefest of moments before his expression twisted back to one of worry, of sadness, of _hurt._

He tugged at Aeleus’s head ever so slightly, shortening the distance between their faces and looking him square in the eye. “You aren't going to harm me.”

Finally, every tensed muscle in Aeleus's body fell slack at once, a puppet cut from its strings. He didn't fight it when a fresh wave of tears wet his cheeks, revelling in the respite those few words granted. His hand covered Ienzo's fully then, pressing it harder against his face and letting his eyes slip shut, the other one running over his knee. He felt Ienzo scoot closer then, right up against his side, and Aeleus slipped his hand up and around his back to blindly pull him into an embrace, the frantic pace of his heart stuttering and beginning its descent at long last.

“Breathe.”

“I _killed_ you,” Aeleus croaked out.

“I'm alive. It was a harsh nightmare.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Don't be. I don't mind at all.” Ienzo slid his uncovered hand away from Aeleus's cheek and around his upper back, rubbing small circles between his shoulder blades with his thumb. In turn, Aeleus pressed his forehead into Ienzo's shoulder, inhaling a deep, quivering breath through his mouth since his nose was too stopped up. “You always ease me down from mine. I'll be here to help you with yours.”

In the morning the whole mess would embarrass him, ashamed that he let terror get the better of him, and Ienzo would talk him through it before breakfast, but right then he allowed himself to bask in the comfort. It didn't matter that the door sat ajar, and neither of them noticed that curious eyes had stolen a glance into the room before retreating back to bed, assured that the situation was under control. All he cared about in the moment was feeling the faint, steady ticking of Ienzo's heartbeat through his palm.


End file.
